There is an ever-expanding need to protect information transmitted across networks. At the same time it is important to provide cost-effective solutions for protecting the information that is transmitted. Transmitting data over networks involves the use of network devices that are owned by service providers and by customers of those service providers. Existing solutions rely on a customer providing encryption functionality at a customer premise and a network service provider supplying data transport functions. The separation of ownership of infrastructure based on this functionality requires that both the service provider and the customer acquire and maintain the necessary infrastructure to provide their respective functionalities. This can be a very expensive and can be a very in-efficient solution, which can especially affect the customers. Furthermore, in prior art systems access to devices owned by the customer has been restricted to the customers only, and the service provider is prevented from accessing functions or data that may not be too sensitive to keep secret from the service provider but could otherwise be useful to the service provider in providing its services. In addition, access to devices owned by the service provider has been restricted to the service providers only, and the customer is prevented from accessing functions or data that may not be too sensitive to keep secret from the customer but could otherwise be useful to the customer. This lack of inter-accessibility and flexibility results in limitations on how networks and network security with encryption can be managed.